


Roses and the Sea

by MJosephine10



Category: fixing on the hour - Fandom, gender bent pride and prejudice
Genre: Gen, fixing on the hour, half way through i wanted her to come save me and write it for me, i sincerely hope you enjoy it anyway, i wanted to write tolkiengirl a vignette for fixing on the hour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 15:57:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11062293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MJosephine10/pseuds/MJosephine10
Summary: Darcy's birthday is coming up soon and Eli's having trouble coming up with a suitable present.





	Roses and the Sea

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TolkienGirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/gifts).



“Bing, can I ask you something?”

Bing turned to face Eli standing in front of her, hands deep in his pocket, a worried look clouding his face. It was Memorial Day and the two of them were standing in Darcy's open living room, light streaming in through the huge windows. Bing and James were staying with Eli and Darcy for the weekend, but James and Darcy were in the kitchen so for the moment it was just the two of them. 

The worried look surprised Bing. Eli wasn’t often worried or nervous, especially not lately. He had always had a certain confidence (sometimes bordering on cockiness) but, since he'd married Darcy, that had softened into a calmer sense of peace. Before, insecurity, pain, and pride fueled the confidence as much as anything else. Now bitterness had given way to something gentler. Security had deepened the hint of swagger into surety. It was a beautiful thing, love, the way it affected everything about a life and spilled over into everything, making everything better just by its touch. At least that was what Bing thought.

So the concern surprised her (and worried her a little too.) 

(Bing worried more easily than she let on.) 

“Yes of course! What is it?”

She pulled herself into one corner of the couch and nodded him toward the other corner. She liked talks with Eli. Deep down she knew he was the brother she'd never had, and she knew that was the truth even thought she was fully aware of the two brothers she did have. Eli sat down slowly, the worried look neither disappearing nor shifting. 

“Eli, what is it? Is something really wrong?”

“No! Everything’s fine! It’s just…” He trailed off looking down. He seemed oddly embarrassed and hesitant.

She leaned forward. “Buddy, spit it out. What is it? You’re starting to worry me!”

“It’s about Darcy.” He finally admitted. “Her birthday’s coming up.” He paused. “On June 1.”

Bing laughed at this. “Eli! I know!! She’s my best friend! I’ve been reminding her for weeks that her birthday is coming up! Also, you know that remembering birthdays is my thing. One of my talents.” 

“Bing of course I know you know when is it. I guess,” he paused and the worried look returned. “I’m trying to get around the fact that I have absolutely no idea what to give her for her birthday.”

"Oh!" She felt more relief than she wanted to admit. "That’s okay Eli.”

“No it isn’t.” He said it with a touch of sudden fierceness. “It’s not okay at all. It's ridiculous, is what it is. She’s my entire world. She means everything to me. She deserves so much and,” he gestured hopelessly, “And there’s not one thing I can think of to give her. Nothing! And you can say it doesn’t matter, but it does! All I want is to show her how much I care and I've never felt more inadequately equipped to put that into words, or gift-giving. But it's important, especially on her birthday of all days." 

He sighed and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. 

"So what you're saying is there's an inverse correlation between how much you care and your ability to find a gift that says what you want to?"

"Yes, exactly!" 

Bing was quiet for a moment, then smiled and murmured, half to herself, half to Eli, 

"An 'If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more' kind of thing."

"Are you quoting Austen at me, Lee? At a time like this?"

Bing whacked him with the throw pillow next to her. "It is always appropriate to quote Austen and you know it. The fact that you know that is Austen is, truthfully, one of the reasons I know you're good enough for Darcy. I mean," she giggled, "it's certainly not the fact that you give such good birthday gifts." 

Bing couldn't help it. She loved being the sister he'd never had. And that included teasing him. 

Eli's laugh ended in a desperate groan. 

"Why did I even come to you for help? You've probably had Darcy's gift figured out for weeks!"

"Months." Bing grinned impishly. "Birthdays are very important to me and she's my best friend! I have loved her longer than you after all."

Eli smiled at her claim to prior affection, knowing that she both meant it and didn't at the same time. Bing was not someone who would really think that who came first mattered when it came to love, but she did believe very strongly that romantic love should never replace friendship. Eli loved her for it. Since he'd married Darcy, his relationship with James and her friendship with Bing had not waned in the slightest. If anything, they'd deepened. It's almost as if love really was all around. He half-grimaced, half-laughed at the fact that lines from Love Actually were coming into his head unbidden. 

"When did you first realize you loved Darcy?", he asked her.

"As soon as I met her! I saw her and decided we were going to be best friends." Bing smiled delightedly at the memory. "What about you?"

Eli's eyes had a far-away look and his smile at once softened and brightened his whole face, making it more gentle and more alive. Bing, also in love, understood the expression perfectly.

"Oh it was the same for me as it was for you. The minute I met her it was over for me. It just took me months to realize it. It was like I woke up one day and realized she'd had my heart since the moment I first saw her."

Silence fell between them for a little while as each mused on the day Darcy had overthrown both of their hearts (and so their lives). Overthrown was too wild a word for Darcy, deliberate and determined in everything she did and was, but it was true nonetheless. She'd come into both of their worlds and upset everything, for the better. Bing broke the silence with a question.

"When you think of Darcy, what do you think of?"

"I don't understand."

"Well you know how Darcy has synthesia with words and colors? What images do you associate with Darcy? Maybe we can find an idea for a present that way."

She had made the suggestion only lightly, half expecting him to dismiss it. But his face and eyes lit up in excitement and understanding and the words practically poured out of him. 

"Roses. And the sea. Roses because they're classically beautiful and elegant but also because, for all their ubiquity, they still have some mystery to them. They'll hurt you if you're not careful, but no flowers are more beautiful or more worth any initial pain."

"And the sea?"

"How is Darcy not the sea? Look at it!" 

He gestured to the view out the bay windows, to the restless, glistening beauty of the sea. 

"First off, obviously, there's the hidden depths, the secrets she carries with her, pain disguised with breathtaking beauty. Then there's the colors. Steel gray on a stormy day, roiling blue green, or a blue that's radiant and peaceful at the same time. Everything about it, its restlessness, the way it's always changing but always the same. It's just," he spread his arms out. "It's Darcy. All of it." He paused and then added, "I just thought of the perfect present for her." All his previous worry had evaporated. He looked certain and boyishly determined. 

"What is it?"

Eli's grin was wicked and delighted. "Nope, not telling you. You'll have to wait and see. Thank you for your help though, Bing! You broke me out of my cycle of gift-giving incompetence. Wait, what's wrong?"

He had been so caught up in his description of Darcy as nature's greatest beauties he hadn't noticed Bing. She had her hand over her heart and her eyes, though full of delight, were on the brink of tears.

“Lee, are you going to start crying on me?”

She laughed a little and brushed her hand to her eyes. “No, no, it just makes me so happy. How much you love her, I mean. It makes me so happy.” 

“Me too," he said completely seriously. "I’ve never been this happy in my life.” 

After a moment of silence where both of them looked out at the sea and thought of the people they loved (and also of where they could possibly be? Were they in the kitchen? Really?) Eli turned to Bing and said lightly, "I'm really glad you married my brother. Whom, by the way, we should go join. Along with my wife. I can't imagine what they're doing in the kitchen." 

Bing stood up to join him, and as she did so her face lit up with the brightest smile. Tears still stood in her eyes, but they were tears of joy, peace, and the most overflowing gratitude. 

"I'm glad you married my best friend."

**Author's Note:**

> Happy freaking birthday Emma! You are the best EVER and this fan fiction and world you created is one of the many gifts your friendship has given me. I wanted to return the favor (a little) by attempting my own vignette for fixing on the hour. It's pretty rough and I'm not kidding when I said that a million times while writing this I wanted you to come do it for me (my respect for your brilliant writing has gone up because danggg this is hard) but BUT BUT I hope you like it anyway, you perfect rose girl! <3


End file.
